Mediaite’s Winner and Loser of the Day
THE DAILY NEWSLETTER – MONDAY, AUGUST 16, 2021
MEDIA WINNER: Clarissa Ward
CNN’s Clarissa Ward is no stranger to reporting from dangerous situations, boldly knocking on the door of the Russian agent suspected of poisoning Alexey Navalny and filing reports from inside Myanmar after the coup there. Her on-the-ground reporting from Afghanistan is no exception to that rule, providing Americans an intimate and often shocking view of a country in the midst of turmoil.
Ward has provided valuable live reporting as the Taliban assumed control of all major cities, at risk to her own personal safety. When asked about the danger by Brian Stelter, Ward replied that they did not believe that Western journalists were being targeted, but noted that they were taking safety precautions. She added that Afghan journalists — especially women — were “absolutely petrified.”
Her report from Kabul Monday illustrated how much the country had changed in a mere 24 hours, with Ward now donning a hijab as she and her crew moved around the city.
Conservatives on Twitter took a section of her comments out of context and tried to falsely portray her as sympathetic to the Taliban. Mediaite’s Ken Meyer broke down these disingenuous attacks, with the full context of her remarks. Sen. Ted Cruz’s (R-FL) attempt to slam Ward drew a sharp rebuke directly from CNN, with their PR Twitter account taking a swipe at Cruz for “[r]unning off to Cancun in tough times” while Ward was “risking her life to tell the world what’s happening.”
“That’s called bravery,” tweeted CNN about Ward. We couldn’t agree more.
MEDIA LOSER: Michael Avenatti
“Be careful what you wish for” — a lesson Michael Avenatti would have been wise to heed. He spent the last few years striving to become a famous media figure, and like Icarus flying too close to the sun, his ambitions have brought him crashing down to earth.
A federal judge has dismissed a defamation lawsuit filed by Avenatti against Fox News, finding that “most of its statements were substantially true” and “opinions and minor inaccuracies cannot anchor a defamation claim.”
The complaint stemmed from Avenatti’s November 2018 arrest on suspicion of domestic violence. Fox News, like many other media outlets, reported on the arrest. The local prosecutors investigated and later decided not to prosecute him. Avenatti’s lawsuit took issue with several comments and jokes made on air by Fox News personalities.
Avenatti’s case was made more difficult by his status as a public figure — a notoriety he himself had sought, with his press conferences and frequent television appearances as the attorney for Stormy Daniels. Defamation law has a lower level of protection for celebrities and other public figures (as the judge described Avenatti, a “famous lawyer”), requiring a plaintiff to prove that a defendant acted with “actual malice,” a standard which the court found was not met in this case.
In July, Avenatti was sentenced to 30 months in prison for an embarrassingly disastrous attempt to extort Nike — yet another example of his media-hungry hubris overpowering whatever common sense he might otherwise possess.
